In Defence of Walking Simulators
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- Опубліковано 28 вер 2024
- Kat explores what makes walking simulators controversial and excellent by comparing them to a modern classic of literature - Cormac McCarthy’s The Road.
Patreon: patreon.com/pixeladay
Twitter: @pixel_a_day
Transcript: bit.ly/pixelad...
Thank you to Jacob Geller for providing his voice: / jacobgeller
Thanks to Darkfry, Sam (Afterthoughts), Harry (Video Games Are Bad), Willow (Questing Refuge) and Evelynn (I am Error) for giving me feedback on the script.
All game footage capped by me
Music used in this episode:
The Boy - Nick Cave & Warren Ellis
The House - Jeff Russo
The Finale - Jeff Russo
Maybe this should go without saying, but the term “walking simulator” sucks and it’s extremely dumb that an entire genre has been permanently marked by the juvenile reactionary backlash to it. But since we haven’t collectively moved on to a better term, that’s the one I’m using I guess.
Gotta take back control with the name: “Walk-em-up” makes the walking sound FUN
Walking Goodness
My friends and I use Walkie Talkie because we're 90s kids
I’ve heard the term digital exhibition and while I don’t think its perfect I like that the term shows that these games are more about experiencing and less about doing.
@@ericle6735 QWOP is the only real walking simulator 😁
Bang, a Jacob Geller v/o right out of the gate! This vid really hits me. So much of game design is limitations and walking sims really do pair things down to the essentials.
I fucking thought so!!!I had talked myself out of that being Jacob until I saw this.
lol i too was sure that was jacob’s voice but was confused as to how.. i still yet to watch this video but is he a voice actor in the game being discussed?
I also use the term "Walking Sim" for better or worse because "narrative experience" is just too pretentious even though its much closer to what these games are. To me, walkings sims are narrations like novels or audiobooks but enhanced by techniques native to the gaming medium. You don't just read or listen to a narrator talk about a stark, beautiful beach, you are actually standing on a starkly beautiful beach. But its not just a slideshow with music for a novel either. In Tacoma you learn about other people by rifling through their belongings and through environmental clues like posters - a narrative technique that goes beyond the genre of epistolary novel. And since Walking Sims are a different genre of pc games it would be wrong to judge them by game mechanics, spectacle etc. That would be like saying that a novel is boring because there are no pictures in it or like saying a comic book is stupid because it doesnt have enough written passages.
Dear Esther walked so doom 2016 could run(&gun)
Thank you for this video. As someone who makes and directs games like these (and having been criticised for not including puzzles or enough game-y mechanics) this is very heartening to hear. The types of experiences I like to create are about immersing the player in a world, setting, story or just an atmosphere and I don't feel that that would be improved by tacked-on game mechanics. I think the term "game" generally does a great disservice to the width of the medium but it's the term we've settled on and I don't have a good alternative.
Ahh, I am heartened that you’re heartened, it’s an infinite loop! 😊 Please continue to make the games you love making. The criticism just means that your games aren’t “for everyone”, which of course is a good thing! By the way, I’ve heard only excellent things about your latest game and it’s on my to-play list.
That's great, I am also interested into Walking sim-s, like. Happy you exist!
I always said that the word "videogame" is bad for my favourite hobby, for me they are "walkable/interactive paintings/movies". I also hate the over-reliance on puzzles, imagine reading a really good book and all of a sudden you have to necessarily solve some crosswords otherwise the next page won't turn!
@@manigoldo8736 This made me think that maybe I should not feel the pressure to force some game mechanics into the my "game" in which for now you mostly walk around and observe things. I feel emotional pressure put some gameplay into it just so that It's technically a game.
@@openroomxyz Well it depends: take Eastshade for example: it integrates the walking simulator with some questing and mild crafting. Or Rain World where movement, combat and AI interactions are VERY complex but all you need to do is to explore, eat and sleep. Just ask yourself if the mechanic you want to put in your game is going to enrich the experience or not, if you feel that you're forcing a mechanic just because it's a game then you know that it's useless. Good luck with your work!
Excellent video! I like that you not only broke down the advantages of stripping out features from the "walking simulator" genre and how it makes it mark all the more indelible, but also that you showed how there can be some "feature bloat" in games that don't necessarily require all of the extra moves and buttons that they include simply to feel all-inclusive. The Road is one of my all-time favorites, both film and book. Stoked you cited so much of it.
"Far worse, though, was the low, powerful moaning at dusk. The wind off the sea and the odd interior stillness dulled our ability to gauge direction, so that the sound seemed to infiltrate the black water that soaked the cypress trees. This water was so dark we could see our faces in it, and it never stirred, set like glass, reflecting the beards of gray moss that smothered the cypress trees. If you looked out through these areas, toward the ocean, all you saw was the black water, the gray of the cypress trunks, and the constant, motionless rain of moss flowing down. All you heard was the low moaning. The effect of this cannot be understood without being there. The beauty of it cannot be understood, either, and when you see beauty in desolation it changes something inside you Desolation tries to colonize you."
-Jeff Vandermeer, Annihilation
Came here because I'm trying to learn about walking sims because I want to make one. Fell in love with your channel❤
I think the quote "if I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter" fits well here. Its something I take to heart when thinking about my own art, mostly because my ambition makes my projects bloated lol
Excellent quote, I love it!
I am not a Gamer but my favorite video essays are the ones about walking simulators. They tend to be the most well thought out and deep analysis of small details. Just watching them make me feel calm and curious at the same time.
This might very well be my new favorite video of yours. What an absolutely excellent summary of the strengths of the genre, and its validity. A huge plus that you also reminded me of how great The Road is!
Beautiful essay, simple and very evocative. I only have one thing to add: I read somewhere (can't find the source now) that someone conducted a study regarding how the players felt when something as irrelevant to the gameplay as the jump button was taken away from them in action games. Even if, like you said, platform sections were absent, it didn't matter: the players have being internalizing the jumping mechanic since the era of classic Mario games, and indeed jumping is one of the first things they tend to do when trying out a new game. As such, they felt frustraded, as if the characters they played as were heavier and slower. In the end, stripping the jump button away from the player conveyed so much more than adding it for the sake of the player not feeling constrained. This is a good example of subtraction not being the same as absence.
I'll try and see if I can get the source, bc I'm pretty sure I'm not making this up xD
Ha ha I trust you 😊 IMHO a big chunk of the gaming community just want things they are familiar with and the AAA industry just rejnforces this with endless copy-paste jobs for the sake of profit. Anyhow, glad you liked the video!
now ive got a pun stuck in my head:
> there is no later. THIS is later. a walkingsimu-later.
...
sorry, just needed to get this out of my system :D
I really enjoyed this. I'm a huge fan of walking simulators and you've articulated really well why that is. I love the mindfulness of them, the lovely onion-peel feeling of gently excavating layer by layer of story without that feeling of having to scurry through the map as fast as possible before more enemies spawn.
They're not for everyone, and that's okay, but I do think a lot of people overlook them because of preconceptions they have, which is a shame.
I'm really shocked you only have 8k subs, I look forward to seeing what comes next
I'm so glad I found your channel. Electron Dance recommended your Nature's Harsh Truths video which, besides being great and talking about Outer Wilds (which is always a plus in my book), it reminded me that after I'm done with Elden Ring I really should return to Rain World again. Then I saw that you'd done a video on Nier: Automata and couldn't believe that I'd finally found someone else who felt the same way about that game as I did. And now you've just released an absolutely fantastic video, with Jacob Geller narration no less, that I'll be sure to recommend to any of my friends who complain about "walking simulators".
Any fan of Electron Dance is welcome here! Glad you’re enjoying the channel ☺️
I’ve always loved walking simulators more than combat in games. There’s something said in the silence, the stillness. Wonderful video. Thank you.
The stanley parable is one of my favorite games ever and that is a walking sim. 8.
Jim
Wish there were game names in the corner in all game clips used.
I love a good "Narrative Walker" (my contribution to the "not 'Walking Simulator' brainstorm). My experience playing Gone Home was completely immersive and as I reached (no spoilers!) the final room, I truly did not know what I was going find, and when I did, the emotion I felt was pretty real! What Remains of Edith Finch completely absorbed me (also, it has oodles of secret doors, which, is my jam). I remember playing Dear Esther, too, way back in the day, and though that experience wasn't as great (maybe because I walked the wrong direction early on and you move *reeeeeally* slow so it took me some time to get back on track. . . ), I see the threads of creation that connect what DE was doing to what these narratives and play are exploring now. My favourite part of Rise of the Tomb Raider was the bonus "walking sim" DLC at the end of the game.
I also greatly agree with your points about halfway through, we aren’t used to thinking about game mechanics as bits of game language, ways to communicate with a players, but it’s a core element of how the medium works.
As a developer looking for more info on this type of game to possibly make one of my own, this video was extremely helpful!
Oh wow that's so great to hear! Best of luck with your future work :)
I hate the slow walking segments in Sony games
Thanks for creating this. Happy that people who like walking sim exist, I thought I am the only one, with this prespective.
This channel is a gem. Every vid is so inspiring! I'd love to hear your thoughts on Indika if you've played it :D
Its almost getting boring to compliment you on how good your video essays are
I’m not bored… 😂
This channel should blow up in no time
Only if you share it around and help make it happen 😊
@@PixelaDay deal
Fascinating video! Great job. I find that walking simulators can offer such unique storytelling and can keep you engaged by just the mystery of it all. Edith Finch is a fantastic example of this. It presents each narrative in a fascinating way that helps convey empathy and the character's life story and final moments. Every mechanic it introduces serves a purpose. You've now got me fascinated by The Road -- I'll check it out as well.
(Btw, check your email for a creator collab opportunity, for I have no better way to contact you unfortunately)
Good luck with The Road, hope you like bleak stuff! 😊 And good luck with the collab, I won’t be playing the game for ages yet.
@@PixelaDay Thanks for the reply! God bless.
I tend to take a slow appreciative approach to games and I try not to take features for granted, but I can think of a few games that make me ask myself: "was this feature really necessary? Could this game have cut the fat a little for the better?" For some reason I find it much more difficult - at the moment - to come up with examples of games that are intentionally lean or minimalistic to great effect, that omitted or teased something the player might otherwise have wanted or expected, that make me say: "I can't do this or experience that, but it only makes me appreciate more what I do have." Especially when it comes to full-featured games with lots of mechanics. I know I've played games that have that effect, but the only example that currently springs to mind is the lack of a HUD in Metro 2033.
I really enjoyed Metro 2033 and I think this was part of the reason! Hellblade also springs to mind - no HUD, health bars, inventory, levelling, etc. All the better for it 😊
@@PixelaDay Maybe in the future I'll be more aware of this kind of "game feature negative space", if that makes sense. Great vid!
One reason I fell in love with Hellblade was how the enemies conveyed health through their wounds. It's an absolutely ingenious system that adds soooo much to the game.
The one feature that "walking Sims" should have is a platinum trophy! It is quite disappointing that Firewatch and What Remains of Edith Finch don't have a platinum. But Everybody's Gone to the Rapture and some others do. Within the story are optional story details and a platinum trophy highly encourages players to seek them out.
The "Narrative focused games" should be their own genre and not trying to fit in with others. I'm one of those people that just can't appreciate "games" that you can only follow the storytelling. Though a lot of linear progression games are just following the story narrative, why is it different? Answer is because people play for something else, and stories only there for the sake of aesthetic. Good stories sells, but imagine Assassin's Creed without the assassination. You can strip everything else but you cannot strip parkour and assassination.
You're right about one thing. Is some kind of functions necessary to specific genre?. That's also something I'm working on, I'm trying to be minimal about my games too. But there is also one thing I wanted to ask people that enjoy "Narrative focused games". Is the button to proceed the next action necessary? Like you wanted to eat and the spoon will just froze there if you don't press the button, and you can't do anything else if you don't eat and there is no alternative. Is that even necessary? In games like GTA you'd just press the eat button and then your character proceed to eat until it's finished. At the same time in Cyberpunk 2077 you can drink beer in the story, and I so wanted that bottle of beer in my house because you can just drink it indefinitely. Like something doesn't even matter and you just put it there.
This would be unfair for games with event action, Detroit: Become human has great story out there but the input required just so annoying. I'd appreciated if the game is just admitted being a visual novel and have intense narrative focused with few possible endings(no suck rng, no bad buttons, no filler endings) It's just annoying when something wanted to present themselves so bad by putting effort into something inelegance.
There is one thing I have to defense game designers. A lot of teachings in the community has kinda "programmer focused" environment and lacking in artistic side. That's why a lot of game designers tend to focus on mechanics rather than aesthetics.
But I can't defend them all the way through since it is possible to learn from mistakes and grow up from there. I myself also one of them back then and after uncountable failed journeys, I learned.
It is a long way in the community before future games actually have elegant feature design from intentions and not by limited resources.
And lastly I wanted to mention again that "Narrative focused games" should be their own genre. It's mean we shouldn't compared them with other kind of games by the same standard. You won't expect beautiful storytelling in the intense action games. In vice versa you also won't expect adrenaline pump combats in narrative focused games.
Pretty cool essay, compared to most essays it was rather unique and i like the relativly slow pace of the essay somewhat mirroring the topic at hand. Good job the different voices also added alot to the exprience. The only "problem" i had was the lenght of the video. I persoanlly prefare either 10 min videos or 2 hour ones. Its subjective though
I don't necessarily think that one genre of game is better than another, it's a matter of taste right? But I love these kinds of games for their emphasis on narrative. I love a game with heart and a good story. So many open world games feel empty and I get tired of the repetitive pointless tasks. I love the depth of these kinds of narrative heavy games, I like that they make me feel something. Anyway, just my random thoughts about it. Excellent video as always! I enjoyed your comparison of these games to The Road, which is book I didn't know anything about.
Thank you! ❤️ If you want something in equal parts bleak & beautiful check out the book!
Hears hoping we get something like dear Esther or Everyone's gone to the rapture for the ps5, I'm getting tired of the modern game asthedic as I feel games like Esther and Rapture capture so much heart n soul with incredible n impactful Stories that stick with you a hell of alot more than today's 'must kill everything /collectathons' sort of games, I really love your insight n thoughts to games of this ilk and I crave more stories like this in the future, btw subbed, i love your work dedication n passion to these types of games, I gravitate towards this type of genre more than any other game type
Amazing and deep reflection Kat!
I suggest we change the genre name to "Slowey Movey", it would definitely help in the long run (pun maybe intended).
Thanks!
Thank you!
Love this. The ubiquitous hate that these games get - particularly Everybody's Gone to the Rapture - is so tiresome and myopic and depressing to me.
Happy to hear there exist people that like walking sim. I may continue working on mine.
I love walking sims
the thing is, not every game needs to tell a story, not every game is narrative. the unique thing about games is their interactivity, their mechanics.
that's why Gone Home is so much more fun than Dear Esther: Gone Home is still a game, you're finding stuff and working out puzzles to find out more of the story; in Dear Esther you're just inside a worse interface for a short story.
The "take a moment to slow down" aspect of walking sims put in to words what I always knew but could never articulate about why I loved them so much. Great video!
Yea the wording was perfect!
Absolutely
I remember asking a friend who is a professional artist in the industry, "What is the difference in your art now from where you started"
After a pause he said, "An amateur puts more in because they are afraid, a master takes away because it's not needed"
It's a statement that has stuck with me for over a decade now
Oh gosh I like this! Your friend is much wise
This is a good video.
The only thing I would add here is that a lot of walking simulators like these seem to have stories that are told in the past tense. Dear Esther, Everybody's Gone to the Rapture, The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, What Remains of Edith Finch, Tacoma, Gone Home. That's because they're trying to leverage the minimalist gameplay in their favor. The events in those games already happened and we're experiencing them after the fact. So adding more interactivity with the world or the story elements wouldn't change anything that happens.
I watched your video on Dear Esther as well. Like you said adding more interactivity with the world wouldn't do anything to add to the stories these game are trying to tell in the way they want to tell them.
You seem to have a good grasp of the understanding that media should be judged and critiqued by what it does and what it's trying to do. Not by what you wish it was or wasn't. A lot of media critics make this mistake. 👍
I have complicated feelings on this genre, but I do think it's valuable and have enjoyed a fair few of them. Eastshade is one of my favourites. It has a few more mechanics than the usual example, but it does a great job of capturing the feeling of being in a space and taking it slow to absorb it all. It's a game that I feel like deserves more attention than it gets.
I'll check it out!
Your essays are so beautiful, this one really spoke to me. I love the way you tie all the themes of the video together, it got me really good.
So glad to hear it
I loved the mechanics of the backwards walking game in The Beginner's Guide. Such an elegant idea explored wonderfully
Take my Like just for "putting cards on the table" :)
Beautifully written as always.
Blimey Cormack Mccarthy has a distinctive style. Haven't read The Road and it was clearly him from the first line.
👍. leaving a comment for engagement.
Walking Sims are so relaxing👌
Facts
A game very dear to my heart, but very niche, is Eidolon by Ice Water Games. It's... mostly a walking simulator, letting you explore a beautiful lo-fi (almost abstract) version of a huge chunk of western Washington state, in the far future, gathering documents that tell the story of the world. You navigate using binoculars and incomplete maps that are hand drawn or centuries out of date. The feeling of wandering this world was, to me, sublime.
It has paper-thin survival game elements, that almost feel extraneous -- you can always survive just by clicking on any berries you walk past, and not walking directly towards a bear if you see one. Starvation and cold were always trivial to stave off, but provided just enough texture to your travel to give a sense of place and time.
I don't know if anyone bounced off it because they wanted more mechanics, or fewer, but to me it was the perfect amount for this game -- occasionally having reason to drop a fire in the shadow of an old bridge, watch the sunset, fish for a bit while I wait for the rain to stop. Essentially just an abstract sketch of 'survival game mechanics', like the art summons up trees and ruined buildings from simple forms.
It's only tangentially relevant to this particular video. But... I rarely feel able to recommend this game, despite how much I love it. It's very slow-paced. The comments of this video feel like a place where someone who'd love Eidolon as much as I did, might be reading.
Thank you for the recommend, I'll definitely check it out. I also hope my comments sections can be a place where people recommend lovely and obtuse games. Thanks for watching :)
It took me a few years to *get* what Walking Sims are, after getting over my own ego and what constitutes a game. I found quite a few WS that really got me.
Wow, this is a turnaround! I remember a certain someone saying "I hate walking simulators" in his videos :p
@@PixelaDay Ohh boy that was the dumbest bloody thing ive ever said!
I recognise most of the footage from the games in the video, but there art some games that I don't recognise and would love to know what game the footage is from.
Can anyone list what games are included in the video footage?
I would really appreciate that info so i can search out the ones I haven't yet played.
The Old City: Leviathan, Dear Esther, Everybody's Gone to the Rapture, The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, What Remains of Edith Finch, The Beginner's Guide, Tacoma, Gone Home. They're all interesting and worth playing IMO except for The Old City which feels like it's trying to be Dear Esther but it's not nearly as good.
@@PixelaDay Thanks for that.
It was The Old City game I hadn't seen or heard of before but it looked interesting. Maybe when it's on offer I'll give it a go. I loved all the others especially Everybody's gone to the Rapture, brilliant atmosphere and story. Cheers for the reply.
Cheers for the comment!
Came here through Adam Millard's suggestion in his latest video. Loved the content and subscribed fellow Aussie!!
To me, the most important part about walking simulators is that they're an example of constraints leading to art. Usually made by small teams that can't afford lavish systems of combat or a ton of dialog lines or animations. So when you can't afford all that, you make games that don't need them.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on some other games I have seen talked about in the same breath as walking simulators but that I feel are doing something very different tonally then you are saying is suited to the medium (or that the medium is trying to impart). Sorry for the long comment… buckle in:
- The work of Brendon Chung in Gravity Bone and Thirty Flights of Loving, and the game it inspired Virginia. Games which are, yes, guided narratives where, much like The Road, a lot of the background details are left implied rather then explicitly shown to the player, but which instead of being slowly paced and contemplative, are an experiment in Jump Cuts, propelling the player at breakneck speed through the narrative, almost challenging them to keep up with the plot, where temporal agency is being taken away (see also Before Your Eyes) (also, these games tend to be peppered with a fair few other characters that you directly interact with, instead of a mostly empty cast to leave room for self reflection… leading into my next point!)
- You show footage but don't directly mention The Beginners Guide, maybe the most directed experience and indicative of another pervasive feature of Walking Simulators: The Narrator (or voice over). Instead of a contemplative experience where you explore at your own pace and draw your own conclusions or focus on what you feel is important, Davey (playing a caricature) is leading you by the nose, blinders on, through exactly the experience he wants you to have (and this can cause some contention with authorial intent and blah blah not the place for Beginners Guide Discourse).
- Adios is also a game with an explicit narrative where you aren’t just an empty vessel exploring and coming to know more about the world or a vague understanding of the character you are in the roll of… The Farmer feels pretty fully formed right out the gate, and in the game's most emotionally resonant punch, out of your control to a degree (a trick also explored in The Beginners Guide). Adios is ALSO peppered with player interaction, giving you a fair amount to “do”, though it is more mundane then what most other games would ask of you.
- Bringing me to Jazzpunk! Which feels more akin to a grown up version of those Point and Click ‘entertainment’ CDs from the early 2000’s, dressed up as a Comedy Walking Simulator. Every inch of that game has some joke to be had in an interactable or unique minigame digression, but almost all of it is optional… if you just want to “play the story” you can beeline your main objectives and miss out on 99% of the work put into it, work that makes up an almost sensory overloading number of things to do compared to Dear Esther.
- I have kind of ranked this list working towards what would be considered a “traditional game”. “You Must Have This Many Interactions To Pass (sometimes quite literally)”... where do things like the Myst or Rhem series, or Quern, fit in the pantheon of walking sims? Are these desolate, contemplative, self directed, often times melancholic, sublime in their stillness, Capital “G” Games to be exempt from the title of Walking Simulator because they also happen to feature “Puzzles” as gates to progression, some kind of challenge for the player to overcome?
- What about if you took a game and turned it into a walking simulator, as is the case with SOMA and it’s alternative mode disabling all killscreens, taking the bite out of any of the games enemy encounters. This was how I first experienced the game, completely transforming it, its message, and my understanding and reaction to the story! Instead of feeling any animosity towards these mangled creatures, or the rogue AI hellbent on keeping them alive… I felt compassion and a sense of kinship with them, and ultimately no hard feelings. By stripping away antagonism from the game, I too also chose peace and left that AI running, creating its new world in the wake of humanity’s end.
Should I make this comment into my OWN video essay? Maybe… maybe… will I for now just leave it here? Absolutely!
Really enjoyed the video, I think you made some incredible points, I just want to bring up COUNTER examples. Thanks for reading all this if you managed to.
Glad you enjoyed it! The video wasn't really intended to be a comprehensive discussion of every walking sim, and I did focus on my favourites and why I love them. I really enjoyed The Stanley Parable and The Beginner's Guide and I can't really add anything to the analysis of those that other people have already done. Thirty Flights of Loving is almost its own genre and the kind of experiment I'd love to see more of. I didn't love Virginia, if anything because it kind of wasn't experimental enough...like it's similar enough to Twin Peaks and the X Files to draw the comparison but it's not nearly as good as those, so I think it suffers from the comparison. I haven't played the others. Funny you mention puzzle games because I think they have a lot in common with walking sims and are a great example of how games that incorporate space and stillness and room for reflection aren't actually that rare or that weird!
Great comment. About the last point, another video (by Leonardo Da Sidci) included The Witness as an example of a Walking Simulator and I felt it was weird, but at the same time the Witness and Myst-likes share a lot with walking simulators, a curiously ignored fact given that the first Myst released in 1994. If anything Walking Simulators show that while puzzles and slow-paced exploration can work together, both are different, self-sufficient game ideas. It's actually a thing with a lot of video game genre expectations - what we've come to see as elements of a larger whole do not really need each other, and that whole can be broken down into more compact experiences, sometimes for the better.
I've been deep in The Long Dark recently, and while it's not a true walking simulator, I saw a fan jokingly describe it as "the most stressful walking simulator", and... it kind of is in a way. There are bits of stress and action and whatnot, but so much of the game is just... kind of like The Road. Bleak, bare, but beautiful walking from place to place.
One of my favourite recent games!
Great video. Instant sub 👍🏽
I think what annoys me is that people who whine about "ludonarrative dissonace" in games should be playing walking sims rather than playing action games, walking sims are upfront about how little gameplay depth there is and it's all about the story. And fact of the matter is, when it comes to story and gameplay. The more you lean towards gameplay, the less consistent and plausible the story in your game becomes while focus on story, the less gameplay depth and mechanics you have for your game.
Walking sims just don't seem to care about this fine balance and just jump straight into the story, which I kind of respect even if I find them to be rather tedious experiences since there is no tension during gameplay and the idea of overcoming a challenge is why I like games to begin with.
I'll give walking sims some final degree of credit, unlike a game like Bioshock which has terrible combat and half baked immersive sim mechanics, walking sims just know they are about the story where Bioshock tries to take the cake and eat it by being about listening to audiologs while having some terrible feeling combat.
Thanks for your comment! I also totally respect both ends - all story no gameplay (walking sims) and all gameplay no story (tons of games to pick from there). Much prefer a pure experience delivered well than an awkward jumble of the two where they undermine each other (Bioshock Infinite, my god).
@@PixelaDay
I feel that way but with the first Bioshock. I am convinced the whole, "walk around and explore the setting to get the whole story" started with that game. Gone Home's storytelling feels like it was heavily inspired by the first Bioshock except Gone Home didn't try to be an awkward shooter that is painfully easy.
Wow. You nailed it. The Cormac McCarthy comparison is golden. I was never really a hater of "walking simulator's" but I also sometimes struggled to verbalize their relevance in the gaming space until recently. One of their other notable contributions is accessibility. I would much rather recommend a walking simulator to someone new to videogames or who is put off by all the violence and convoluted mechanics in order to introduce them to the medium. The minimalism and accessibility gives other people a chance to engage with videogames when they probably wouldn't have even come close to God of War.
A thought though. I find myself far more tempted to watch playthroughs of walking simulator's than other game genres, I guess because of the (false) perception that they are *less gamey* than other traditional games, and I get hung up by the idea of spending money on something that has inherently less interactive game-like elements to it than other games. Do you think this is a flaw within the walking simulator genre, or it's just a matter of an individual's wants and expectations?
I admit I have no idea how to answer this question! I've only ever played them and never watched a Let's Play. I still feel that playing them is its own thing, if only b/c you're able to choose when to take a second to think things through, stop to cry (can't imagine Edith Finch without the cry breaks tbh XD), and maybe you're a bit more connected to things on-screen but I can't say that for sure. Thanks for your wonderful comments and support!
This will certainly remain a controversial topic for quite some time. Even myself who am generally open to new or challenging experiences, have not always come to terms with this genre. There are certainly some I love dearly, What Remains of Edith Finch is incredible and one of my favourite stories told in videogames ever, but I can strangely empathize with the naysayers here also. Dear Esther was the first one I remember as to being popular in the conversation of "walking simulators", terribly reductive name for the genre, but then again, empathy for those who call it that because they are really hard to label. I didn't like Dear Esther, it struck me as pretentious and amateurish, but I could respect it's originality and willingness to try something new, there's a pure beauty in that no matter what you attempt. A month later, Journey came out, and was actively beating AAA games for game of the year. I suppose it's really just what you make of it, for me. I know it's not very helpful in the discussion overall, but most of the wonderful points you've made here feel like double edged swords. You're so absolutely right that adding combat or similarly action-y mechanics to these games, as they are now, would not add anything, or even actively hurt them. Still, the puzzle elements in The Vanishing of Ethan Carter work well, and I wouldn't prefer them removed, same goes for the dialogue tree system in Firewatch. I love What Remains of Edith's minigames, but hate the minigames of That Dragon, Cancer, as they felt juvenile and interrupted the personal story being told. Both Soma and Outer Wilds: Echoes of the Eye offer a more friendly "reduced scares" mode, and I feel both are affected negatively by opting for it. On the other end of the spectrum, Proteus, a 30 minute randomly generated island exploration game, truly does benefit from it's lack of complexity, and one I'd highly recommend a try to!
This is turning into a little bit of a ramble, but in a way I'm glad for it, this is the hardest I've thought about this genre in years. I never read Cormac Mccarthy's The Road, but saw the film when I was little and I genuinely didn't remember it being so sparse. I suppose that proves your point of not really needing all these superfluous things in the first place quite well, doesn't it? I often find myself no bored by films that completely bore others, and that is okay. If there is definitely a thing the "walking simulator" genre suffers from, is faulty labeling. We call games that have complex mechanics "gamey", so it's easy to see why these games would be painted in a bad light by this metric. Perhaps they should be called something more appropriate, like "interactive art pieces", but alas, they are still games, and most certainly have their value. Thank you for making this video Kat, any effort to remove stigma from something that's just supposed to be experienced and enjoyed is a good thing, and I hope you continue doing so in the future of this channel!
Haha, thanks! Hope I didn’t break your brain 🙂
@@PixelaDay Your videos are intellectually fun, I can hardly ask for more!
Great essay
Amazing video Kat. A good walksim really will change your perspective on games as a medium entirely, one of my fave hobbies is watching my friends play The Beginner's Guide for the first time
Thinking about Elden Ring as I watch this. I love it, but there was quite a bit of unnecessary bloat that it could've done without. I might've responded differently to this video a few years ago, but now I can see the value of having games that exist on both sides of the spectrum: games with too much, and games with almost nothing at all. Unfortunately, it seems that publishers are leaning too hard on the "too much" side of things. I miss when mainstream AAA games could be beaten in 20 hours or less
Loved this video! I've always really enjoyed these kinds of games and its great to hear someone really dive into the genre!
So-called "walking simulators" have been interesting to me since I first discovered them. I have been playing video games since the 1970s, and I have also studied contemporary experimental literature. Within the academic/literary world, the possibilities in interactive media were discovered long ago, and authors have created interactive works that are not marketed as games but wouldn't be entirely out of place (and might sell better) if they were. From the gaming side, the "walking simulators" approach this nebulous space in between games and not-games. Many traditional gamers likely find them disconcerting because they are pushing at the edge of gaming and becoming something else entirely. I like this strange space that exists just inside and/or just outside of video games, movies, and literature where genre conventions are questioned and new ways of telling stories are being discovered. Maybe one day, there will be a name for this space, and "walking simulators" will find a home there alongside hypertext novels, visual novels, text-based interactive fiction (text adventures), and experimental interactive works that defy categorization. Some of these interactive works will appeal to a wide audience, as some visual novels do now, while others will likely always have a small but devoted niche audience. Until then, some of these works will be called "games" and marketed as such, while others will resist categorization as games and find their primary audiences from outside the gaming community. Within this space, I don't see much difference between games and not-games; the edge of the category of "games" is blurry.
IMO it's not as blurry as you think it is. You can tell the story several ways:
book is about the text itself
reading adds intonation
music adds ... music
opera adds actors and their positions on the podium
movie adds cameras, lenses, framing, colors
interactive medium adds the layer of interaction
That's the most critical way of judging each medium on it's own merits. Great movie isn't about great writing, but about telling the story just by camera angles, for example, because you couldn't do THAT with other forms.
I'm a minute in and wtf? Too too effing bleak. It's too much.
This comment is a perfectly accurate description of what it's like reading The Road
I've always been fascinated with how mechanics-obsessed so many gamers are. If a game isn't skill-based or full of complex systems, then it is "boring" or "not a game". Invention in mechanics or systems is often singled out for praise over how well a game's mechanics and design cohere and communicate themes and ideas. Like we've collectively decided that level/environment design, environmental storytelling, aesthetics, symbolism, or design cohesion is worth less if not in the service of complex mechanics and systems that provide enough challenge or obstacles to further our gamer cred.
The "walking simulators" (also hate the term) that are most accepted are those that offer more mechanical variety. Tbf, I do think What Remains of Edith Finch's cannery level is one of the high points of the previous generation of games because of the cohesion between what it's communicating and how it does so through the level's mechanics, but I still think Dear Esther is the peak of the genre through its environmental symbolism, prose, pacing, music, and aesthetics. It tells its story and communicates its ideas entirely through the act of playing, discovery, and the level design. You've called it a poem and I sometimes think of it like "playing" a Terrance Malick film.
The good news is that videos like these show that there are more open minded players in the medium willing and able to embrace these types of experiences than ever before.
So nice to read this comment! ❤️ Edith Finch is the best we have I think, but on a totally personal level Dear Esther is a close second, and still bloody great a decade on. A solid classic IMO.
I highly recommend the short manga Girls Last Tour, I think you would greatly enjoy it
Walking simulators hold a dear place in my heart because of a direction that the game industry is taking - focusing on gameplay. Designing a game to be mechanically impressive and seamless is good and all, but in a-lot of cases it pushes the story aside. I believe that one of the main goals of art is to invoke emotion and thought, and gameplay focused games are pushing the medium towards entertainment more than an art form. In that sense - walking simulators are the best games there are, they bring back the artistry, the pure emotion, back into video games.
it's almost like words "gameplay" and "game" have the same root...
@@ZZaGGrrUzz true, so replace gameplay with entertainment. Games live between 2 axsises - artistry and entrtainment. Gameplay focused games are leaning towards the entertainnent side, and walking sims puah towards the artistry side
@@hali1989 I get what you mean-- there are some really 'game-y' games, like Mario or multiplayer shooters out there that fully focus on your kinaesthetic link with the player character-- making your basic verbs as immediately gratifying as possible... and they often tell pretty shallow stories, when you go all the way over to that side of the spectrum but... I don't think the only answer to bringing artistry to game design is by stripping the _game_ out of it.
think of the spectrum of artistry and emotion in games as a sort of... quadratic graph. It's not that games on each end of each graph are necessarily worse or less interesting or emotionally affecting-- (I've never had chills like I had when playing Kitty Horrorshow's walking sims, or felt such a rush when I played Devil Daggers) but that they aren't capitalising on all games can do to elicit those emotions.
On one end, you have games fully focused on being story-driven. COMPLETELY-I'm talking text adventure stuff, then higher up it's walking sims and so on...
On the other, you have story-less, pretty meaningless but incredibly satisfying games-- they can be joyous and artistic through their art design/animation/music, and making extremely fun games is an art in its own right-- but they don't draw on a very diverse range of human emotion... it's pretty much in one mode for the whole thing.
Up at the top of the curve, you have games like the esoteric, open-world survival platformer Rain World, (and probably a bunch of other extremely deserving titles like Celeste, Inside, Outer Wilds and stuff I haven't played or played enough to meaningfully describe, like Papers Please) which doesn't just use story to support the gameplay-- but instead they're a perfect marriage of both, creating systems that are built from the ground up with theme and story in mind... Like Rain World's literal cycles of endless death and rebirth, and the counter-intuitively designed/very unfamiliar feeling platforming and combat controls that put you in sync with your character... You're a small animal, not fully matured, separated from its pack. The controls reflect its clumsiness for most of the game, with you feeling slippery and heavy and like your little legs aren't doing what they're supposed to! but both systems have an incredible depth to them that will see you and your character slowly mastering them, becoming more precise with your movements, gaining autonomy over your body and learning to survive the game's cruel world over the course of the... 50ish hours I found it took me to complete-- it's a character arc realised through the player's journey to understanding the game's very intentionally _complicated_ verbs.
Plus, since the character gets reincarnated every time they die, instead of just respawning like in most games where the character won't remember-- it's implied the little guy REMEMBERS the pain of being thrashed around in the jaws of a giant lizard. This game is DIFFICULT, and frightening, it pushes you to the limit... A lot of people quit and never pick it up again-- but this frustration and anxiety you build up over the game is capitalised on by the narrative, and used as a driving force/motivator for you and your character in the last part of the game... eventually leading to an INCREDIBLY cathartic ending, when at the start I wasn't sure anything waiting at the end of my painful journey could make my suffering worthwhile. I don't wanna spoil it exactly, but... yeah! you go on a pretty complex emotional journey with Rain World, a game with very complicated systems, and it always remains ludonarrative-ly harmonious and intellectually stimulating... it's an incredibly affecting journey.
I'm preparing a conference on Everybody's gone to the Rapture by The Chinese Room. Your video has been incredibly useful, nourishing and relevant. Thank you for sharing your thoughts, I certainly agree with your thesis and points of view.
Wow, a conference? My interest is piqued :) Glad you enjoyed the video, your comment means a lot.
@@PixelaDay I have been informed the proper term is "lecture" in the sense I'm the one giving the talk 😅 contrary to conference where a lot of people talk about the subject.
Anyway, if you interested, I would be happy to share a record (or perhaps make a new record) here on youtube after the event.
Thank you for you sincere answer and once again thanks for your reflections which I'll be citing and commenting
Of course, if you have a recording I'd be keen to watch it. If you share it, tag me or something so I can find it :)
Journey is a "walking simulator" and is one of the most important games of all time. Beautiful in everyway and the score by Austin Wintory is so insanely moving. "There's enough on Journey's music to fill a college class".
Imo walking simulators are just interactive story’s that you experience…. We’ve reached a point where video games have evolved into more than just how it was with pac man and Tetris … those type of games pioneered the concept of what games are supposed to be .. which is all about the challenge… but nowadays they’re making games that focus more on story’s .. and walking simulators .. just leave out the challenge part and let you explore the world and its story .. which is cool if your just looking for a immersive chill experience to get lost in
great video thanks for making it
You're welcome!
I still find them boring, but i recognize that not everything is for me.
This video makes me wanna cry
Came from Eyespatchwolf video, It was an interesting and well scripted video.
But I kinda disagree with the video, Walking sims have been around for years so I think they can no longer be considered as something that "challenge conventional wisdom". I think they are just something more akin to traditional visual novels, their own simpler mediums for story-telling.
Overall, indie games often offer more minimalistic tittles in comparison to Big AAA games. So I dont think minimalistic is a characteristic that unique in videogames.
16:33 Also, I dont think those last two games are good examples. Bioshock infinite was critized for being "simpler" and "more straightforward", if they had tried to remove even more mechanics, the game would have been anything but Bioshock. The franchise was never about just telling a story. As for Alan Wake, the developers actually removed the open-world from the game because they thought that was conflicting with the narrative part of the game, so I dont think they were trying to add innecesary features.
It's so weird that being stripped back has become the major criticism of walking sims when being so focused on their worlds and stories is often what makes them so salient. I find it difficult to stay present and be in the moment a lot of the time so I LOVE games that really commit to the idea or feelings they want to get across. Sometimes we really gotta just...pause. Figure out what's important. Great job on this one!!
I've played a few walking simulators, mostly Gone Home and Edith Finch. I actually really enjoyed Gone Home. I found the story relatable (in a general sense, sharing very common experiences) and I was nostalgia for the music especially and other things that were familiar from the mid 90s. Edith Finch was ok, but I found myself losing interest as it went on. I thought the minigame where you're processing fish was never going to end. I'll definitely check more out because a lot of times I'm tired and I just want something simple and easy before I go to bed.
Oh no, I don’t know what I could recommend if you didn’t enjoy Edith Finch! I do admit you’ve got to be in the right frame of mind for these games though
A long time ago as a teenager I had a similar discussion on a forum about 28 Days Later, after a local review panned the film for not explaining stuff enough - what is the infection? how it works? what happened before? what happened after? etc. I think it's an example of a film that strips away the unnecessary. "- What are they infected with? - ...Rage." Is probably the most gripping explanation of lore in a zombie story I heard and coupled with the montage of violent riots that the film begins with gives it a more universal, real, even symbolic, dimension.
Also, your theory about giving space for certain emotions through emptiness/sparseness can be equally used to explain a lot of "slow films where nothing is happening", from Jim Jarmush, through David Lynch to... hehe... Andrei Tarkovsky ;)
I love 28 Days Later! That opening scene completely destroyed me. I re-watched the movie a few weeks ago and it still holds up pretty well (maybe exactly because it avoids specifics).
Noice. I really enjoyed Dear Ester. I've got the vanishing of Ethan Carter in my steam library. I'll have to give it a try soon.
I like the video. Interesting and although i have disagreement(just a personal thing) it at least brings interesting questions to think about.
I am going to be harsh and say some walking simulators are overhyped and are not as good as i hope like edith finch. The ones that were good imho is journey, abzu, and freebird game series as although i have problem with freebird game series i respect how they did no rpg battles and wanted a more walking simulator feel to it which told more intimate stories.
Heck i want to like walking simulators more because the highlight from it will be the stories. I love visual novels for that reason as they can come up with weird stories and have amazing payoffs.
This video made me so happy! I always love your videos, but I was especially delighted to recognize Jacob Gellar's voice, and footage from so many of my favourite games in one of my favourite genres!
The comparison to The Road was very apt, and I think it really helped illustrate what I love so much about these games. Having played hundreds of games throughout my life, I am generally bored by any game that tries to do EVERYTHING. Open world, crafting, rpg and survival elements, RTS minigames... 100+ hours full of side-quests and collectibles and online leaderboards... no thank you! Give me a 1-2 hour game from a tiny team that is genuinely passionate about something; a game that doesn't do much but does it well.
It is also funny to think that I now have an urge to go back and replay all of these games, and that I can finish replaying all of them before I could finish a replay of Horizon: Zero Dawn!
Thanks for another excellent video!
You’re very welcome! Glad you enjoyed it and thanks for the lovely comment.
Hmm, to be honest, I never heard the term "Walking Simulator" being used pejoratively to actual walking sims, and after listening to this essay, I kinda understand why it causes so much anger and backlash. It all ties to the expectations. When I see people complaining about "walking sims", it's usually a critic pointed at some AAA game, almost guaranteed to be a open world or OW adjacent, in which the core mechanics are spaced (a lot) by precisely this, walking into an empty space. Empty in the sense that there isn't much to do, the worlds are merely a blank canvas where you sprinkle quests and collectibles, and in order to get to those points of interest, you *walk, and walk, and walk.* That is fine for an actual walking sim because that's kind of the idea to begin with, strip away every other mechanic and focus on the narrative, on the visuals, on the sensations the player can experience. That won't fly so easily inside an action title, especially with the current tendency of characters being *unable to shut up.* Perhaps, if they didn't talk so much we could actually appreciate whatever feat of graphical rendering they came up with in the form of an Open World.
For example, look at the "Sony Exclusive" game formula, and how they all feel kinda similar in that sense. You have the mechanics for a action game, but it gets constantly bogged down in scripted scenes, hit or miss dialogue, and lots of walking around. That, or you'll be picking one shiny after the other, to curb the illusion that you're actually in a big, empty box. Still on expectations, that's why I think the new God of War games are such a let down. The story is cool, the visuals are nice, but boy, the combat is horrible. Or should I say, it pales in comparison to the previous instances, and since it literally has *Gof of War* in the name, it's hard to not associate it to the rest of the franchise. Actually, the producers expect us to associate, lest it would be just another unremarkable game to come out.
I'll be the first to admit that I don't like walking sims because I am a person mostly driven by rule of cool, and the more high octane, fast paced and explosion-prone the game, the better to me. But again, this essay got me thinking about why people play other games, and gave an insight on why I don't like this triple A game trend. Well done work
Damn, I'm starting to love is channel and using Jacob Geller for reading is a cherry on top.
Arguably, Dear Esther removes the 'game' from an interactive experience, rather than searching for what a minimalist game would be.
That could go to something like Journey, that is very minimalist yet still tells a meaningful story with it's mechanics (not with narration/cutscenes/etc).
Anyways, 'the less is more' is dearly missing in the AAA scene. But it's also missing the direction and focus in general. It's, sadly, rather a box checking exercise :(.
Excellent points. I agree that is often . with game design.
I've never understood "wanky" as a criticism. Every artist is entitled to a good wank every so often, it's up to you whether or not you want to watch. You can't agree to watch then say you had a bad time because the author was wanking.
i know my ADHD doesnt like me to stop but this reminds me of a section in god of war
theres a scene where kratos rows about for what feels like such a long time, in silence and cory barlog wanted it in but many wanted it cut
its not quite the same as a "walking simulator" vibe as both the player and kratos are anxious about a certain dramatic moment and the nothing prolongs the anxiousous but it was one of the more memorable parts of the game to me despite not being a pivotal story moment or a big action setpeice.
Lovely essay. IMO the games that fit this genre got this term from a largely immature audience of gamers who are used to slick studio productions focused on consumer engagement. It’s only in the last five years that I think gaming as a medium has left its adolescence as an art form and as it becomes clear that gaming is the artistic medium of the next generation, the derision with which games that fit this label are viewed will dissipate and we’ll find they’re viewed as classics.
Beautiful way to look at games and this genre! Also a fun thought experiment, sometimes the extra stuff in a way does add to a game but not always.
In the past decade or so, I've (very selectively) gotten into visual novels specifically because they can offer me a role-playing, choices/consequences experience similar to games like Mass Effect... but with all the combat and resource-gathering *filler* stripped out.
Comment for engagement! I hope that your channel continues to grow. Essay is incredible!
Tacoma was such a relaxing experience for me and it's approach to storytelling made me so infested in the characters that I couldn't even see in person, and the fact that it was walking sim definitely hellped here and let me focus on story and small enviroments rather than gameplay
I've not played a "walking sim" I didn't like, be it Edith Finch, Firewatch or even Death Stranding if that counts.
This was a damn amazing video and one which I've been waiting on for a while! It really encapsulates the absolute X-factor of games which focus more on being and reflection than doing, which is so much more often the focus of games :')
Other, less known walking simulators: INFRA and WALDEN feature other approaches.
I’m only a couple minutes in, but anyone that opens with McCarthy gets an auto like. Watching the rest now
This is some of your very best work. I think you've made a really elegant and well-supported argument, and the practical applications to modern game design that you draw at the end are so relevant right now!
Also, I work in a bookstore, and this video made me grab a copy of The Road - looks like I'm in for a barrel of laughs in this light and fun adventure!😅
Truly fun for the whole family
Came over from Architect of Games and subbed immediately. Awesome job!